Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UPON FURTHER REVIEW TODD D. BURLAGE [gave up]," Kelly explained last week. "When you play the game that way, you're susceptible to off days, and you're going to get beat." Former Irish head coach Charlie Weis learned that lesson the hard way dur- ing his five seasons here. His "outscore 'em" strategy led to inconsistency, fre- quent upsets and numerous blowouts to ranked teams. History proves that a dominating de- still missing some downfield reads and open receivers. But at least to this point, Kelly said, those types of mistakes are tolerable through Golson's maturation, where the game-changing turnovers of last season are not. Going into the Stanford game, Gol- Kelly freely admits that Golson is well within the top 10 in scoring de- fense and total defense most of this sea- son, it has also found itself inside the top 10 of both the USA Today coaches' poll and in the BCS computer rankings — two critical components to being selected by the BCS. fense is the most successful formula to consistently reaching BCS games and winning national championships. Since the BCS was adopted in 1998, only Au- burn in 2010 won a national title with a defense that finished outside of the top 25 in total yardage allowed. The Tigers ranked No. 60 that season (and look at them now). And because Notre Dame has stayed Kelly the luxury of taking some heat off of his offense, most notably, sopho- more quarterback Everett Golson. And again, the Irish coaching staff is using the strength of its team to help groom a rookie signal-caller at an ideal pace and in a controlled setting. Offensive game plans this season UNDERSTANDING PERSONNEL Fielding a premier defense has given have been smart, diverse and oppo- nent specific, with one shared theme — ball protection. son had five touchdowns (three pass- ing and two rushing) and, more im- portantly, just four turnovers (three interceptions and one fumble). For comparison sake, through five games last season — when Notre Dame opened with a 3-2 record — starting quarterback Tommy Rees had 10 touch- down passes. But Rees had already turned the ball over nine times (six interceptions and three lost fumbles) in those five games, validating Kelly's approach that less is more, and slower is better, for Golson's development this season. Blending a great defense with the model blueprint to teaching the quar- terback of the future has allowed Gol- son to steadily expand his acumen with minimal mistakes, rather than being forced to do too much too soon, as Rees was last year. Much football and many terrific op- ponents remain in this 2012 regular sea- son. But given the early returns from Kelly's adaptability and foresight this season, there is no reason to foresee many — if any — setbacks the rest of the way … even with all the noise. ✦ Todd D. Burlage has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 2005. He can be reached at tburlage@blueandgold.com